The present invention relates to a portable refrigeration unit for cooling palletized product.
Generally, palletized products are cooled by locating the pallet of products in a refrigerated warehouse or within a storage cooler. These refrigeration options are limited in that they may not provide a satisfactory solution for palletized products where the volume of palletized products requiring cooling is low or where the nature of such palletized products is transient such that the space or expense of a refrigerated warehouse or a storage cooler would not be justified.
In addition, refrigerated warehouses or storage coolers do not provide a desirable marketing solution that allows end consumers access to palletized products from a comfortable, room temperature retail setting (e.g., a grocery store). As a result, retailers typically will either have the consumers shop from the inside of a storage cooler (e.g., a beer cooler) or the retailer will individually remove all of the products from the shipping pallet and place them in refrigerated merchandising display cases. Although this merchandising of product provides visual appeal, it is labor intensive and adds to the overall expense of operating such a store.